A printer in which a cartridge accommodating ink is detachably mountable is known in the art. The cartridge includes a memory for storing residual quantity information specifying the residual quantity of ink in the cartridge.
Under certain circumstances, such as when a printer malfunctions, the user may wish to remove the cartridge from the malfunctioning printer and mount the cartridge in another printer in order to continue using the cartridge. Since the cartridge in the conventional printer disclosed in the '203 Publication possesses a memory, the other printer could read the residual quantity information from the memory of the cartridge after the cartridge is mounted in the other printer to determine how much ink remains in the cartridge. However, when the cartridge that does not possess a memory for storing residual quantity information is used, the other printer cannot detect the residual quantity of ink in the cartridge. In this case, it is difficult for the other printer to perform proper printing operations with this cartridge.